Tony Abbott at the Brisbane People’s Forum

This is the transcript of Tony Abbott’s address and the questions and answers from the People’s Forum at the Broncos Leagues Club, Brisbane this evening:

TONY ABBOTT:

Ok, well, I’m going to come down again if I may because I think that’s a better way to handle this. This is an exchange, it’s not a lecture. This is your opportunity to ask me what’s on your mind and this is the kind of thing that I’ve done often enough in my electorate and I want to thank the Courier Mail and Sky for giving me the opportunity and the Prime Minister the opportunity to do something like this here in Brisbane. We had a good discussion in western Sydney last week and I think it’s only right and fair that we have the same kind of discussion here in Brisbane.

Elections are very important but in the end they’re not about who becomes Prime Minister, they’re not about which party gets into government, they’re about you, they’re about your family and they’re about our future and that’s the issue. Who is going to give the best deal for you and your family, who is going to best secure the future of our great country? Now, I’m asking for your support in this election to change the government. Not because I think that Julia Gillard Kevin Rudd or the rest of them are bad people, they’re not. But I think they’ve been a bad government. They’ve broken promises, they’ve wasted money and this mining tax, which would be very, very damaging here in Queensland, shows that they don’t really know how to run an economy.

It’s been a very negative campaign so far, I’m afraid to say and the reason why it’s been so negative is because the Government doesn’t really have a record to run on. The Government’s record is record debt, record deficit, record boats and sadly, getting rid of an elected Prime Minister in record time. Now, I didn’t think that Kevin Rudd was a very good Prime Minister but he was elected by you, the people, just three years ago and I think he deserves to face the people’s judgement. I didn’t think he should be executed by the faceless men of the Labor factions.

But the question for you is, will the Coalition be better? So my commitment is that starting from day one, we will end the waste by, for instance, giving the school infrastructure money to school communities who’ll spend it wisely rather than just giving it to the educational bureaucrats who’ve wasted a lot of it. We will tackle debt and deficit and we’ve announced today that the Coalition will spend $11.5 billion less over the forward estimates period and that in 2013-14 government debt will be $30 billion lower under us than it will be under the Labor Party. We will stop these big new taxes because you do not deserve to have your mining industry clobbered by a big new tax. You don’t deserve to have you power bills go up because of the carbon tax that Labor will impose if it get re-elected and we will stop the boats, not because it’s the only important issue, there are many important issues but a sovereign, independent country has got to control its borders. The Coalition did it before and we can do it, and will do it, again. But that’s not all we’ll do.
In the first term of a Coalition government there will be a fair dinkum paid parental leave scheme, an overdue social reform, a visionary economic reform. We’ll give seniors who want to stay in employment a fair go and most importantly, we’ll try to ensure that young people, including indigenous young people, don’t get stuck in intergenerational unemployment. We’ll give them commitment payments if they take jobs and stay there. We’ll give them relocation allowances to go to the places where there is work because I want to build a better society. I want to move from a welfare state to an opportunities society.

Now, I know health is always important here in Queensland. There is no magic wand but if we had community boards running our hospitals and not the faceless bureaucrats, they would run better. Doctors and nurses would get a fair go for a change. So it will be better under a Coalition government. Not perfect because nothing is ever perfect in this veil of tears but it will be better and that’s why I’m asking for your support. We are a great people but we’ve been let down by our Government and I am now running the race of my life to try to give this great country the better government that it deserves. So that’s probably enough from me. Thank you for being patient. This is your forum so over to you for your questions.

DAVID SPEERS:

Thank you and just a reminder when you do ask your question, just tell us your name and what you do and fire away.

QUESTION:

Hello Mr Abbott. My name is Tammy and I work in human resources. The current cost of living in Australia is amongst some of the highest in the developed world. How will you go about making housing and the cost of living more affordable?

TONY ABBOTT:

Well, you’re right, the cost of living has gone up enormously. You mention housing and rents have gone up by 17 per cent on average around Australia over the last three years and electricity has gone up by 34 per cent around Australia over the last three years. There is no magic wand, I’ve got to say. I’d like to be able to come in and tell you that I could make all of that that pain disappear. But the best thing we can do is try to avoid making it worse by putting big new taxes on things. If there is a carbon tax, your electricity prices will go through the roof. If debt and deficit continues to spiral, that puts upward pressure on interest rates. On housing, the best thing we can try to do there is to try to keep interest rates low, to try to keep wages high and to try to ensure that the state governments follow reasonable land release policies without putting too many hidden taxes and charges on land. Now, that’s what we’ll try to do. As I said, there’s no magic bullet here but good economic management is the key to a better outcome for the Australian public.

DAVID SPEERS:

Just on that, nothing particular that you’ll do on cost of living.

TONY ABBOTT:

Everything that we do is designed to help reduce cost of living pressures but there is no across the board bit of magic that is going to dramatically reduce our cost of living.

QUESTION:

Hi. My name’s Rachel and I’m a student. People have said that by lowering the immigration rate the economy will suffer. I was just thinking that maybe a solution that could be possible would be to ban abortion and save lives of innocent babies and therefore build a new generation instead of just having nobody to carry on.

TONY ABBOTT:

Ok, well look, you know, I want to see Australians have more kids. I really do. I mean, Peter Costello said it well. He said have one for the mother, one for the father, one for the country. Good advice and the interesting thing is that since that bit of advice the birth rate has edged up. Back then I think the birth rate was something like 1.7. It’s now getting back up close to 2, which is good and policies like the Baby Bonus have certainly helped there and my paid parental leave scheme, I think, almost certainly will help boost the birth rate. So, very important, I think, that we support Australian families that have kids. We want to make sure that families with kids get a fair deal.

As for immigration, well, I’m in favour of immigration but it’s got to be sustainable. And the problem is that we had 301,000 immigrants in 2008. We had 277,000 immigrants in 2009 and that is just not sustainable. So we’ll be cutting, by at least 100,000, on the immigration figure from 2009. It will be a maximum of 170,000 under the Coalition. So, I would like to see people who have a contribution to make welcomed in this country but we certainly don’t want to bring people in from overseas who are going to get caught in the same traffic jams, get stuck with the same inadequate services and the same crumbling infrastructure that the rest of us are stuck with at the moment. We’ve got to make it sustainable. That’s what my objective is.

DAVID SPEERS:

I think the question though was about banning abortion.

TONY ABBOTT:

It may have been, David, you’ll notice…

DAVID SPEERS:

You didn’t answer it.

TONY ABBOTT:

That’s not my policy. I wouldn’t do it, I just wouldn’t.

QUESTION:

Hello Mr Abbott. My name is Ron Mitchell. I’m a retired person. Mr Abbott, I’m quite concerned. You seem to have avoided some of the bigger issues of the campaign. You’ve avoided an economic debate with Julia Gillard. You didn’t appear at your own broadband announcement and you weren’t there for the release of your costings this afternoon. If you have dodged these issues as Opposition Leader, what confidence can I have that you could deal with them as Prime Minister, or is Malcolm Fraser right, that you are not ready for government?

TONY ABBOTT:

You sound like someone who has made up his mind, Ron and you’re entitled to make up your mind.

QUESTION:

I wouldn’t rely on that.

TONY ABBOTT:

Alright, well let’s see if I can persuade you, let’s see if I can persuade you. Look, Ron, I trust my Shadow Ministers. I trust my Shadow Treasurer. I trust my Shadow Minister for Finance to release a costings document. You know, when Treasurer Wayne Swan released the pre-election financial outlook document, Julia Gillard was nowhere to be seen. So, if she wasn’t there when Wayne Swan makes costings announcements, why is it somehow a problem if I’m here talking to you rather than in Melbourne to hold people’s hands?

The other point I’d make is at least I know who my Minister for Finance would be if there was a Coalition government. The Prime Minister, unfortunately, can’t tell you who her Finance Minister will be post-election. She can’t tell you who her Defence Minister would be post-election and she can’t tell you who her Foreign Minister will be post-election, although there may well have been a deal with Kevin. Although Kevin’s not actually answering any questions. He’s just making pronouncements and then leaping into the car before any questions are put to him.

On the subject of an economic debate, I debate the economy every day, Ron. I debate the economy every day. I gave the Prime Minister a chance last night to come to the ABC studios in Sydney and debate me. You know what she was doing? She was sitting in a plane on the tarmac at Sydney Airport. She flew from Queensland down to Sydney, presumably because she wanted to debate me. She must’ve got cold feet. Something must’ve happened because she never left the airport and then she took off for Perth later on. But I gave her that chance. I think tonight my job is to talk to you. We have lots of occasions in Parliament and in campaigns for politicians to shout at each other, for journalists to question politicians. Tonight I think is a rare opportunity for the public to have their say and I didn’t want to cut down the public’s time to question me just so that Julia and I could shout at each other on a stage, the way we do in the Parliament.

QUESTION:

Hi Mr Abbott. My name’s Liz Johnston. I’m a communications technician. I’d like to know if you intend to keep the initiative to have one computer per one child by next year in every school?

TONY ABBOTT:

Liz, I’m going to be a disappointment because no, we are not going to continue the Prime Minister’s Computers in Schools Programmes. Not because we don’t think computers are a good thing, of course they’re a good thing. Not because we don’t think that school kids should have access to computers, of course they should have access to computers but this has been a very inefficient, badly run programme. It’s way behind schedule and it’s way over cost. It’s running two years behind schedule and it was supposed to cost $1 billion. It’s now costing $2 billion. We think that rather than just give schools computers, whether they want them or not, we should give schools the opportunity to tell us what technological assistance they need so we’ve made available $150 million that will be a more flexible and I hope a more accommodating programme than simply the Computers in Schools Programme.

QUESTION:

Mr Abbott. Lin Frame is my name. In 2008 the Productivity Commission said that drought subsidies to farmers weren’t being applied evenly across Australia. When it was put to Tony Burke, he didn’t want to do anything about it. Are you prepared to investigate this situation and adjust it?

TONY ABBOTT:

Yeah, look, the short answer is yes. Look, Tony Burke’s problem is that he has been a part-time Minister for Agriculture. For much of his time, he has been a Minister for Population, effectively he has been the de facto Immigration Minister. We think, the Coalition thinks that agriculture is so important to our future, so important to our economy, so important to regional and rural Australia, that you’ve got to have a full-time Minister for Agriculture. Now, look, I am always happy to look at better ways of providing drought subsidies. We’ve got support for country Australia in our DNA, in the marrow of our bones. There will be quite a number of farmers around the Cabinet table should the Coalition win government and you can be very confident that the last thing we would do is muck up drought assistance.

QUESTION:

Hello Mr Abbott. My name is Sarah. I’m a science communicator. Mixed racial marriage used to be considered immoral and was illegal in some countries. Do you see the parallel between this and your stance on gay marriage, which 30 countries in the world now consider a basic right?

TONY ABBOTT:

Look, I don’t think there’s a parallel and I can fully understand why gay people feel that they’ve been ripped off over the years, because there has certainly been lots of discrimination against gay people over the years and I am as strong as anyone to want to see everyone given the rights and the dignity that every single human being regardless of race, religion, colour, creed, nationality, gender, sexuality should be accorded. But I do think, I’m sorry, I will be a disappointment, I do think that marriage by definition is between a man and a woman. That’s not to say that men and women who are married love each other more than other people in other sorts of relationships, but I just think that the marriage relationship is between a man and a woman.
QUESTION:

Hi Mr Abbott, my name is Sonya, I’m a HR admin officer. My question is where do you plan on making the $25 million (sic) budget cuts as stated in The Daily Telegraph on the 21st of July of this year?

TONY ABBOTT:

Well, we’ve released a long list of expenditure reductions and it is a very long list and it came out today from Joe Hockey and Andrew Robb, but just to give you a couple of examples, we won’t go ahead with the cash for clunkers policy. That’s kind of like pink batts on wheels. The trouble with the cash for clunkers policy is that it will put out of business a lot of good decent Aussie mechanics who are working on old cars and it will cause a spike in sales of foreign cars because there’s only two out of, I think, 900 cars on that list that qualify that are made in Australia. So, that’s one saving that we’ll make. We are going to slim down the size of the Commonwealth public service. There are 20,000 more people on the Commonwealth payroll now than there were in 2007 and I don’t think the Commonwealth Government services are that much better now than they were in 2007. So, we’ll have a 12,000 person reduction in Commonwealth employment which we’ll achieve by natural attrition and look, if we can stop the boats and I believe we can, there’s about $1 billion that we can save that would otherwise be spent on Christmas Island and building massive new accommodation for boat people at places like Curtin Air Base, so they’re a couple of examples of the kind of savings measures that we’re looking at.

QUESTION:

Hello Mr Abbott, my name is Phillip, recently retired. Now, I’ve got a two part question for you. Why do the Liberal Party keep pushing the boat people issue? 3,000 people coming into this country. We have in this country about 750,000 country people that are treated as second class citizens. We’re spending a lot of money on these boat people. Out of that 750,000, I’m talking about the Aboriginal people here, there are probably between 20 and 50,000 of them don’t even speak English.

TONY ABBOTT:

Well, Phillip, I appreciate the question on Indigenous disadvantage and I’ll deal with that in a second, but on the boat people, I have no desire to talk about boat people and I wouldn’t talk about boat people, except for the fact that the boats keep coming. I mean, that’s the problem, Phillip. I know you will say there are people who are here illegally in this country, who don’t come by boat and you’re absolutely right, but there is a world of difference between someone who comes to this country safely with documentation, by air and someone who comes to this country unsafely without documentation by boat. I think people are right to feel that we are not doing ourselves justice when people can just rock up on our shores from anywhere and when they feel that people smugglers have taken over a component of our immigration programme, so that’s why I talk about it. I didn’t talk about it when the boats weren’t coming and I only started talking about it again when the policy changed and the boats started coming again.

As for Indigenous disadvantage, I take this very seriously and I reckon that the gutsiest, the most visionary, the most imaginative policy thinker in our country at this time and has been for at least a decade is Noel Pearson. I have tried, not just to read Noel’s stuff but to, kind of, live the reforms that he wants to see. I spent three weeks as a teacher’s aide up at Cowan in Cape York in 2008 and last year I spent 10 days in Aurukun as an assistant truancy officer to understand better what’s happening in remote Indigenous places and there are good things happening, there are bad things happening, but what we’ve got to do is give back to Aboriginal people the right to take responsibility and the payments that I announced yesterday, the relocation payments, the commitment bonuses for young people who take jobs and keep them, they are designed with Aboriginal people in mind. Noel Pearson is the inspiration for those policies. Again, I don’t pretend that there is a magic wand or a silver bullet, but we’ve got to do better and certainly any government that I lead would never cease from trying to do a better deal for the first Australians.

QUESTION:

Hello Mr Abbott, my name is Claire and I’m a small business owner. It’s important to me that I have information on all the political parties’ policies when I go to vote, so I’m wondering why, considering that the Greens are no longer a minor party, why Bob Brown has been refused at leader’s debates?

TONY ABBOTT:

Well, look, he’s not going to be the Prime Minister, although depending upon the contents of the secret preference deal between the Greens and the ALP, he may well be an unofficial Cabinet minister in the government should the Labor Party be re-elected. Look, Bob’s not in the leaders’ debates because he doesn’t lead a major party. Simple as that.

QUESTION:

Good evening, Mr Abbott. My name is Shaun. I’m an apprentice plumber. My question to you is, what are you going to do for the apprentices that are struggling for work?

TONY ABBOTT:

Well, Shaun, we will try to make sure there is as much work around as possible and that means trying to keep taxes low, trying to keep the workplace reasonably employment friendly. It means trying to keep interest rates low so that businesses can flourish. So, the best guarantee of maximising work for everyone, including apprentices, is to keep the economy as strong as we possibly can. When it comes to apprentices, I’d like to see more skilled workers and the policy that we’ve announced is that we would have 30 Australian technical colleges open over the next four years. These technical colleges won’t be same as Labor’s trade training centres. Labor’s trade training centres are essentially sheds down the back of the school with a lathe in them. They just don’t work. Our Australian technical colleges will have their own premises, their own dedicated trades training teachers, and they’ll have strong links with local business. So I think that’s the best way of ensuring that more kids at school who are interested in a trade get the start they deserve.

QUESTION:

Hello, Mr Abbott. My name is Bianca and I’m a uni student. I’m leaving university at the end of this year and I’m leaving with a $36,000 HECS debt and going into a workforce in a time of economic downturn. What is your government going to do to guarantee that I can get a job and pay that HECS debt back?

TONY ABBOTT:

Well, if you don’t get a job, you won’t have to pay it back until you do get a job, but I want to try to ensure, obviously, that we maximise employment, and Bianca, in much the same way that I answered the previous question, I want to try to and keep taxes low, interest rates low and business buoyant. That’s what I want to do. I did, actually, I have a policy which I think I can share with this room. It’s only a pilot policy, at this stage, but volunteering is an important part of the Australian tradition. Many of our best loved community organisations depend on volunteers. The country fire services, the state emergency services, the surf lifesaving movement, depends on volunteers. As a pilot, we are going to introduce a scheme whereby uni students who give considerable time to these great volunteer organisations will get a credit against their HECS debt. So, it’s not going to be for everyone and it will start off small, but that is an idea that came out of the 2020 Summit. It’s not one that’s been progressed at all by the current government, but it’s one I would like to see at least tried and we will try it if we get if we get elected on Saturday.

QUESTION:

Hi, Ricky Garbert, public servant. If I was going to vote the Coalition as my first preference, who should I vote as my second preference and why?

TONY ABBOTT:

Well, if you vote for the Coalition as number one, you second preferences probably don’t matter that much, but look, I don’t presume to tell you. I want you to vote for the coalition number one and you then number your ballot paper for the rest as you see fit.

QUESTION:

Hello Mr Abbott and I’m a Commonwealth public servant, hopefully not one to be affected by the loss of 12,000 jobs you just mentioned, but back to my question. I know you’re not a believer human induced climate change, but could I test you on peak oil? Do you acknowledge that the world is facing a future of oil depletion and if so, how would you begin to prepare Australia for the major threat this poses to the way we live our lives?

TONY ABBOTT:

Ok, well, you know, the interesting thing about oil reserves is that they’re always being expanded. I mean, at any one time, people think we have say 20 or 30 years of oil reserves. 20 or 30 years later, people still think we have 20, 30, 40 or 50 years of oil reserves, as the case may be and the reason for that is because as the technology changes, more reserves become accessible, and as the price changes, reserves that weren’t really accessible become more accessible. So, look, I know about the concept of peak oil. I don’t claim to be the world’s greatest expert in it, but I’m sceptical as to its value as a tool for policy makers because at the right price, we’ve got a lot more reserves than we currently think. With better technology, we’ve got a lot more reserves than we currently think.

DAVID SPEERS:

So, are you saying, Tony Abbott, that oil is a limitless resource?

TONY ABBOTT:

I’m not saying that it’s limitless. But it’s not nearly as finite as we would think if we had looked at the kind of studies that were done a generation ago or even now.

QUESTION:

Hi Tony, my name’s Simon, I’m an airline services coordinator. My question is because there is a lot of confusion and media coverage about it, but I really want to know if you actually have hung up your shovel in this area of WorkChoices. Is it a dead and buried thing or is it something you will resurrect?

TONY ABBOTT:

Ok, Simon, very fair question. Very fair question and look, just about every Labor advertisement and by God there’ve been a lot of them, I mean, this makes me believe in the ABC, I’ve got to say, David. It’s the only channel that hasn’t had the lying advertisements from the Labor Party about WorkChoices.

DAVID SPEERS:

From the Coalition, too…

TONY ABBOTT:

Yeah, but look, I mean they really are telling lies here. As far as I am concerned, the lesson is absolutely, totally learnt. It’s gone forever. Under any name, gone. Just gone.

QUESTION:

Mr Abbott, my name is Heather and I’m into unit management and my question to you is, it’s been acknowledged many times by both parties that the cost of living has gone up considerably and will probably continue to go up in the future. The pension rise that has just been received by the pensioners has done nothing to avoid the constant struggle that nearly all pensioners face. I’d like an answer on what policies are going to be implemented to give pensioners some sort of hope for the future.

TONY ABBOTT:

Ok, well Heather, I don’t think I can entirely accept that pension rise has done nothing. I mean, it was quite a substantial rise and is it did happen in significant measure because the Coalition pushed for it, and I think that it’s got to make a difference when you get substantial increases. Now, I am not proposing any additional benefits for pensioners over and above the kind of benefits that are already built into the system. I just say that the best way to help pensioners is to ensure that over time, we have a stronger economy, a stronger Budget so that we can, out of a strong budgetary position, provide more benefits for pensioners. The one thing that I think would really clobber pensioners is if there were big new consumer taxes. I mean, pensioners are probably the most vulnerable people when it comes to things like higher prices for gas, electricity, higher government chargers and so on, so look, I know it’s cold comfort but I think the best thing that can I do for the pensioners of Australia right now is to stop the emissions trading scheme, stop the carbon tax, because that would do terrible things to the bills that pensioners face.

QUESTION:

Hi, my name is Chris, I’m a mum, I have a small business and I can see the advantages in both the Coalition and the Labor Party, but what I am wondering about is what the Coalition is going to offer for high income who are high taxpayers, have no kids, don’t own property. What do you offer them?

TONY ABBOTT:

Well, look, Chris, you know, government can’t neglect any of its citizens, but I think of all of our citizens, they are probably the people who are best placed to look after themselves. They probably need least help from government, so I think the best thing we can do for people who are self starters, who have done well, who don’t have that many pressing, immediate responsibilities and obligations is not to put heavy burdens on them and I’m not planning any additional benefits for them. I’m just saying that I will try to enable them to get on with their lives and hopefully by earning more and being entrepreneurial, you’ll boost the economy and that means more jobs for other people who aren’t as free, if you like, as the group that you mentioned and more tax revenue that will enable government to do all the things that it has to do for the community at large.

DAVID SPEERS:

Can I just pick up on that, Tony Abbott, before we get to the next question? You talked about again tonight moving from a welfare state to an opportunity society. Why not cut out some of that middle class welfare? I mean the education rebate, your paid parental leave scheme. You could cut a lot of taxes if you got rid of those things?

TONY ABBOTT:

Yeah, I think the argument always is what is middle class welfare? Because who is rich is very much in the eye of the beholder. I mean, almost no one will admit to being rich and yet it doesn’t matter what my income is, the guy who’s earning $10,000 a year more than me almost certainly is rich, you know. I mean, that’s the trouble when we start bandying around terms like middle class welfare. For instance, is Medicare middle class welfare? I mean, Medicare goes to the Packer family just as much as it goes to the welfare family. I mean, is free public education middle class welfare? Are roads that don’t have tolls on them middle class welfare? Well, by some definitions they are and yet I don’t think we should cut that out at all. When we’re talking about the Education Tax Rebate you’ve to be in receipt of Family Tax Benefit to qualify and sure, depending upon the size of your family, you can have an income over $100,000. But if you’ve got three or four kids and you’ve got a big mortgage $100,000 ain’t rich. So look, I’m not proposing to cut any benefits. I’m proposing to try to make government tighten its belt so that we do not have to force the people to tighten their belts.

QUESTION:

My name is William King and I’m a retired plumber businessman. I’m just, a question here. Tony, if you win the election and become Prime Minister. A couple of years ago under Labor, under Labor we had a recession and the Labor Party gave us a stimulation package to keep the country moving therefore out of recession. You opposed this package. Ok. In the near future with some countries in Europe going broke we have a 50-50 chance of going into recession ourselves. What would you bring, what would you bring into stimulation package like the one Labor has or would you have choices like as you feel you have, if you become Prime Minister, if you feel you have a mandate from the Australian people from this election to go back, would you be able to go back on your word and bring in WorkChoices? Or something similar to that?

TONY ABBOTT:

Ok well look, I think we’ve dealt with WorkChoice and the answer is no we wouldn’t bring it back. But look, on the question of the stimulus payments I think there is a lot of mythology here about what the Coalition did and didn’t do. There were two stimulus packages. The first was in late 2008 when we really were in a crisis because the banks were very shaky and a wave of fear and loathing swept the world’s financial markets. It was a very dangerous situation. So the first stimulus package, about $10 billion, was fully supported by the Coalition. That wave of fear and panic passed and the banks were largely stabilised by a range of measures taken by governments around the world, including the Australian Government.

Notwithstanding that the crisis had passed in February the Government proposed a further stimulus package, in February ‘09 and that was the $42 billion package that involved pink batts, remember the pink batts? It involved the school halls. Now, for the Government to say that that package saved us from recession when we know how the pink batts programme has worked out. We know the waste and the fires and tragically the deaths and as for the school hall package, for a recession that lasted, or for a crisis that lasted a couple of months the school hall programme is dragging on for four years. The school hall programme lasts longer than the First World War to deal with a crisis that in its acute phase lasted about six to eight weeks. So look, we didn’t support that. We didn’t support it and we were right not to support it because we knew that rushing out programmes like this was not going to work. That it would result in terrible waste at the very least. So I make no apologies for not supporting the second stimulus package, for saying that the second stimulus package was too much too soon, for wanting a much smaller second stimulus package. My problem with the Government’s economic management here is that by spending too much, by wasting too much they’ve weakened us. So if we do, and I hope we don’t, but if we do find ourselves in further economically tumultuous times in a year or two’s time we will be much weaker to deal with it than we were back in 2008.

DAVID SPEERS:

But Tony Abbott, our debt position is a lot lower than the rest of the world and the question from William is if we have a need for another stimulus package will you do it?

TONY ABBOTT:

Well, I will do what I think is reasonably necessary to protect the Australian economy and to protect Australian jobs.

DAVID SPEERS:

Even if that means more debt?

TONY ABBOTT:

Well, the point is that you can only do what you can. I mean, you can’t spend what you haven’t got and if spending was some kind of a magic wand, David, why is the United States which had a comparable spend to ours in deep recession? Why are the British who also had a large stimulus package still in deep recession? Spending is no magic answer. You know, everyone out there with a household budget knows that spending makes you feel good. But you can’t just spend your way out of trouble. Keep spending, you get into trouble and in this respect, the government is not that much different from households. You can only give what you’ve got and the Australian government has a lot less to give now because it has spent more than it should’ve spent in stimulus money which was unnecessary.

QUESTION:

Hi Mr Abbott. I’m Billy, I’m a student and my question for you is do you worry about your media persona and agenda is transparent to the Australian people? And furthermore, that your paternalistic use of Aussie slang words like fair dinkum could be insulting the intelligence of the public, a public who holds your future in their hands?

TONY ABBOTT:

Billy, I am a politician. I worry every day about my public image. Of course I worry about it, but look in the end you’re never going to keep everyone happy all the time and I guess I’ve been around for a long time in politically good and politically not so good circumstances and I leave it to you to make your judgment of me.

QUESTION:

Damien Draper, landscaper. I have a tax question for you, Tony. Will you rule out increasing the GST if you become Prime Minister of Australia?

TONY ABBOTT:

Yes I will.

QUESTION:

Hello Mr Abbott. My name’s Kerry, I’m a carer. I want to speak about veterans pensions. We are sending our soldiers overseas. Why don’t the veterans’ pension get linked [inaudible] prior to the age of 55. The CPI doesn’t match [inaudible], so if you’re younger you go backwards. Our young soldiers are coming home wounded, unable to work and they’re going broke.

TONY ABBOTT:

Ok, Kerry, very good question. Very good question and look, you make a very good point. Implicit in that question, people who put their lives on the line for our country deserve a fair go. They deserve the best possible go from the rest of us because they, in a sense, take the ultimate risk on behalf of the rest of us. So I am absolutely with you when it comes to giving our ex-service personnel a fair deal. Now, I’m afraid that when it comes to the DFRB, the Defence Force Retirement Benefit, the former Government in which I served disappointed people. The current Government promised to index those pensions to male total average weekly earnings or CPI, whichever was the greater, and has broken that promise. I have recently promised that at least for veterans over 55 we would index the pension to MATAWE or CPI, whichever is the greater. So we are moving in the direction that you seek.

QUESTION:

But our soldiers that are going over that are being injured are under 55. It’s our young boys, it’s not our Warrant Officers, it’s not our Lieutenants, it’s not our Captains or our Colonels. It’s the young diggers.

TONY ABBOTT:

I accept that and in the modern army as far as is humanly possible they rehabilitate those guys that get injured, get wounded and they try to keep them in the services.

QUESTION:

Hi Tony, my name’s Dennis. I’m a telecommunications technician. What incentive is there for self-funded retirees to vote for you?

TONY ABBOTT:

Well, because we’ve always done a very good deal for self-funded retirees in the past. We deeply respect people who make the effort to put money aside for their future. We want to foster that spirit of independence and self-reliance and the last thing that we would want to do is rip you off. Having said that, you can do a lot more as a government with a surplus of $20 billion than you can with a deficit of $57 billion. That’s why the first thing we’ve got to do is get debt and deficit under control. Once we’ve got debt and deficit under control and I spoke earlier about how that would happen more quickly under us, then we will be in a position to do more. The one benefit that I probably should mention, that we are talking about this election, is indexing the threshold for the Commonwealth Seniors Health Card. Not perhaps like giving you an extra $1000 a week in your pocket but nevertheless, it is a concession that seniors have been seeking. It was an anomaly and it’s something that we are pledged to do should we win the election.

QUESTION:

Hello Tony. My name’s Hannah Goodicson. I’m a doctor working in mental health and I’ve got a two part question. To start with, given that your former boss, John Hewson has characterised your approach to politics as whatever it takes and confrontational, that your economic decisions are neither planned nor thought through in a holistic way, what evidence do we have when you say you’re going to make large cuts to public spending, but you also claim that you want to improve our standard of living, how can we actually expect that to be the case, given the current situation with our health system, is there going to be more money for health in general or is the money going to mental health going to come out of something else? And further, given that the colleagues that you’ve worked with for such a long time have so little confidence in your ability to make sensible economic decisions, what confidence can we as a community have in you as a potential leader?

TONY ABBOTT:

Ok, well you know, John Hewson is even more critical of Julia Gillard. So it you’re going to set him up as an expert on me, set him up as an expert more generally.

QUESTION:

But I’m asking you.

TONY ABBOTT:

Ok, but I just make the point, I think I’m entitled to make the point that John Hewson thinks that a Coalition government, even under his former staffer, would be much better than a continuation of the current Government. So I think I’m entitled to say that. Look…

QUESTION:

Has the Liberal government [sic] actually done any numbers on what our current debt would be, had the Liberal Party been in power or are the comments that you’ve made simply political rhetoric?

TONY ABBOTT:

We would have pursued different policies. We would have spent less and therefore we would have needed to borrow less. Now, because we aren’t in government, we’re in Opposition, we did not at every point in the last three years put forward policy detailed to the last dotted ‘i’ and crossed ‘t’. But certainly if we’d spent $20 billion, for argument’s sake, rather than $40 billion in the second stimulus package, you would have 20 billion bucks off the debt which isn’t a bad place to start.

Now, on health, we are not cutting health spending but we are redirecting health spending. There’s a lot of health spending which the Government proposes which I think is basically about building better bureaucracies rather than building better services and we’re not going to go ahead with the new bureaucracies that are planned under the Government’s hospitals proposal and we are going to redirect money into what we think are more urgent services, more beds.

Now, where mental health is concerned, I didn’t just dream up a policy. Peter Dutton and my staff went to Pat McGorry, current Australian of the Year. No better expert on mental health, no more committed Australian when it comes to a good deal for people with mental health issues and our policy is essentially the policy that Pat McGorry recommended. $1.5 billion more. We’ll have an extra 20 EPIC centres, Early Psychosis Intervention Centres. We’ll have an extra 60 headspace centres, these are for young people with mental health problems and Pat says that he’d like more. Of course, he’d like more. I’d like more, because health policy is always a work in progress but it’s vastly better than what the Government’s got on offer.

QUESTION:

Hi Tony. My name’s Mark Renny. I’m going to ask you about the broadband network that you’ve opposed. In 2010, most people do have a computer, they use a computer. They use it for social networking, business and a lot of other things. Do you really think that our network at the moment is up to it and what are you going to do to make sure that it does cope with the growing use that it’s going to get in the next 20 years?

TONY ABBOTT:

I don’t say that our network is perfect but I’m not sure, in fact I am certain, that spending $43 billion on just one technology is not the way to go. For instance we can spend $43 billion, $5,000 per household, building fibre to the home but what about all those people that use their computers away from their home? Why should they be chained to a fibre cable? I mean, how old fashioned is that, to say that you’ve got to be plugged into a wall somewhere if you want to get access to fast broadband services? Now, we think that you can do just as well for a lot less and that’s what our policy proposes. It’s not a cheapskate policy. It’s still going to cost $6 billion so it’s very expensive but what we’re spending is roughly in line with what’s been spent by countries like New Zealand and South Korea, that all the experts say have a very good broadband plan. We want to see competitive markets here, not just government monopoly because we believe, based on the evidence, that comparative markets nearly always give you a better outcome than government monopoly and the other thing that I just want to leave you with is this, the Government is boasting about how fantastic their broadband vision is, what about this internet filter? I mean, come on. I mean, these are the people who say they believe in broadband, they believe in online services and they want to whack a filter on everything. I mean, how much is that going to slow down the internet?

DAVID SPEERS:

Just picking up on Mark’s question though, Tony Abbott. Do you acknowledge that there are things that you can do with fibre optics at home, at work, at the doctor’s, that you can’t do with wireless?

TONY ABBOTT:

Well, you can’t at the moment. Now, that doesn’t mean that you’re not going to be able to in the future. I’m not against fibre. I really am not against fibre and there will be more fibre under our system but I don’t think we should put all our eggs in the high-speed fibre basket which is what the Government’s doing.

QUESTION:

Thank you. Good evening Tony. My name’s Barry. I’m an education manager. The international education industry in Australia is worth $18.6 billion. So far in 2010 Austrade figures are showing a decline in student numbers in both the [inaudible] sector down 20 per cent and the school sector down 12 per cent. These declines in student numbers, I believe, will flow onto the vocational sector and the higher education sector and I believe that they’re largely as a result of federal policy on immigration and student visa conditions. I’m keen to know what the Coalition government would do to reverse this trend and support the third largest earner for Australia.

TONY ABBOTT:

Ok, Barry, look, you make a good point. Education has become a very significant export industry over the last decade or so. Very significant and I support Australian exports. I support high quality educational institutions, of course I support that. I think the problem though is that some of our educational institutions were effectively selling an immigration product rather than an educational product and that was wrong. That was a bit of a rort to be honest and the Government, to its credit, has begun a bit of a crackdown there and we certainly support that crackdown. So I accept what you’ve said to me that in the short term we are likely to see significantly fewer educational exports. But I think this is necessary in order to put the industry on a long term more sustainable basis.

QUESTION:

Thank you for that. I guess I was just particularly wanting to focus in on obviously the two sectors, the [inaudible] school sector. We certainly are very supportive of the mainstream, dodgy colleges in existence but as I say certainly some of those colleges that are attracting junior people here, there’s obviously a lot of flow-on affects into that vocational sector and I don’t think it’s the government policy that’s actually been designed to affect that, but the unfortunate reality is that it that it has affected that sector.

TONY ABBOTT:

Well, Barry, one of the things that I have learnt in my nine years as a Minister in what I think was quite an effective government is that you always have to consult with people before you change policy. I mean, where peoples’ lives and peoples’ businesses are at risk you’ve got to talk to them first. Now, that doesn’t mean that you’re going to be able to do everything that they want. Often you’re going to disappoint them. But nevertheless you’ve got to talk to them first so that what you do does the least damage in a good cause and so that as far as is possible you don’t have unintended consequences from what you do. When I was a Minister in a government I always tried to talk first and decide later, rather than decide and discover I’d completely stuffed things up because I thought I knew everything and I think that’s one of the real problems in government. People making decisions on the basis of inadequate information that they could have got had they been more diligent before they made the decision.

QUESTION:

Hello Tony, my name is Mavis Edwards and I’m retired but I work as a volunteer for Parkinson’s Queensland. I’m wondering what’s going to happen with medical research because it’s in very dire straits, really.

TONY ABBOTT:

Sure, Mavis. Look, it’s a very important subject and you know one of the great things about Australia is that medical research is one of those fields in which we lead the world. We punch well and truly above our weight when it comes to medical research. We’ve got about 1 per cent of the world’s population but something like 3 or 4 per cent of the serious medical research, the refereed medical journal articles come out of Australia. So we really do extremely well. When I was the Health Minister I doubled health and medical research funding. That was on top of an earlier doubling when Michael Wooldridge was the Health Minister. Because of the fiscal position it’s a lot harder to be generous now than it was then but we have promised an additional $150 million over and above what’s already pledged to health and medical research as part of this election campaign.

QUESTION:

Good evening Mr Abbott. My name is Max Roby. I’m a small business owner and an employer. For many years successive government have encouraged individuals to make provision for their retirement by both the employer’s superannuation guarantee contribution and also allowing additional personal contributions. Until last year this was $100,000 but has now been reduced to $50,000 or $25,000 dependent upon age. Removing the ability or incentive to make substantial superannuation contributions in the later years of your working life and the ability to save because other family commitments are diminished is a disincentive to provide for financial independence in retirement. Will the Coalition government make any changes to the super rules, including changing the employer guarantee contribution rates, the additional personal contribution limits or penalty taxes on excess contributions?

TONY ABBOTT:

Ok, well look, you’re right to be a bit annoyed because prior to the last election Kevin Rudd said that there would be no changes to the superannuation laws. Not one jot, not one tittle he said would be changed and of course there have been a lot of changes to the superannuation regime under this Government. Now, we opposed those changes but thus far we haven’t promised to reverse them. Again, because of the difficult fiscal position that the Commonwealth finds itself in. As for the superannuation guarantee we support the existing system because we think it’s an important part of a) helping people to provide for their retirement and b) boosting national savings. But we don’t support the increase in the superannuation guarantee levy that’s been proposed by the current Government. The current Government I think has been less than straight with people on this. The Government says that the increased super contributions are being paid for by the mining tax. Wrong. Wrong. About $700 million is coming out of the mining tax for low income people for their superannuation but the $20 billion a year that would go into super, if the guarantee levy went up to 12 per cent, that would come out of workers’ pockets or it would come out of business pockets and I don’t say that it should never happen, but I don’t think that now is the right time to do it and we are opposing it.

QUESTION:

Good evening Mr Abbott. Wayne, public sector manager. Another health question.

TONY ABBOTT:

Sure.

QUESTION:

Much has been reported about the need to train more health professionals across an extensive range of health-related vocations. What statement would you make to voters that will convince them you’ll address this issue?

TONY ABBOTT:

Ok, well Wayne look, when I was the Health Minister I dramatically increased the number of medical and other health places. When I was the Health Minister the number of medical student places went up from 2,000 to 3,000 and there was a comparable percentage increase in the number of nursing places. You know, under the former Government, nine new medical schools were opened around Australia. So we’ve got the runs on the board, we’ve got the runs on the board. We believe in a better health system. The only way to have a better health system for an ageing population is to have more health professionals and we put the educational institutions in place to do just that.

DAVID SPEERS:

Thanks very much Wayne. We’ve done well. I think 27 questions from drought relief to gay marriage and…

TONY ABBOTT:

Do I get a brief summation?

DAVID SPEERS:

You do and even politician slang got in there as well. I’ll invite you now to make some closing remarks, Tony Abbott.

TONY ABBOTT:

Well, that’s right. It was much better than Question Time in Parliament, wasn’t it David? Because…

DAVID SPEERS:

It certainly was, sitting here.

TONY ABBOTT:

…the questions were good. At least the answers were brief. There were no 11 minute answers which Queensland’s favourite Labor leader Kevin Rudd gave on one occasion in Parliament.

Look, very briefly can I just say thank you to all of you. I think that our political process is much enhanced by gatherings like this. I think we’ve had a candid exchange. Some of you, obviously, don’t think that much of me. That’s your right and I’ve had a chance to do my best, to put my best foot forward to you.

This campaign has got just two days to go and I am going to campaign continuously over the next two days because I know that the Australian public do not lightly change the government. I know that you do not lightly entrust the Prime Ministership to someone else. You need to know that I want it and I do and you need to know that I will work for it, and I will. So starting at 7am tomorrow morning, it’s a continuous campaign, right through until Friday night, because I want to meet as many Australians as I possibly can. I want the Australian people to know that I am ready to govern. That’s what I intend to demonstrate over the next 72 hours.